AGARTALA, May 14 (TIWN): Despite several inter-departmental steering committee meeting among the officials of Bangladesh and Govt. of India including Tripura, no further development has been brought to the project work for laying of 15 km railway tracks for connecting Agartala and Akhaura in neighbouring Bangladesh. However state Transport Minister Manik Dey while talking to the reporters at the civil secretariat said, “Foreign Ministry has recently asked the DoNER Ministry to release the funds".Minister said, “The entire project work has come to a halt as the central govt. has not yet released the fund to begin the work.” Dey further said that couple of months back a joint team of both India and Bangladesh counterparts had visited the land routes.“Preliminary work comprising of soil testing and others has been completed,” Dey told to reporters. He also said that the calculated amount for the land acquisition has been sent to the Union Ministry, but no fund has been released as of today, as a result the entire project has come to a grinding halt. Minister also mentioned that at least 50% of the fund if released, then the Railways can begin their work of laying tracks connecting Tripura with Bangladesh.

"We have successfully conducted survey of the proposed alignment in Tripura part”, Dey said adding that the survey report proposed Rs 302 crore fund for the project.

The 15-km-long Agartala-Akhaura railway route would connect Indian Railways with the Bangladesh Railways through the North-East which would improve connectivity and boost trade between the two countries. The entire cost of the project is being borne by India and the project would be implemented by the Northeast Frontier Railway.

This project was approved by an agreement signed by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in January, 2010 in Delhi.

The 1,700 km distance between Agartala and Kolkata through would be reduced to 350 km if passengers from here could move through Bangladesh.  IRCON, a central government PSU, was entrusted with the responsibility to handle all operations of construction of the railway lines between Akhaura and Agartala over a distance of 15 km.

About 4.5 Km land area out of proposed 5 Km stretch of rail-line in Tripura part was demarcated. However, modified DPR of the project suggested diverting the railway route in Indian side that increased the length of the proposed railway line.